Difference
by LiaLox
Summary: TAL manhwa fanfiction. A story of Yi-Mae's past. (Ja Yun/Gotaya/Yu Jin) The difference was a voice. A way of expression that a weapon didn't need to have. It was a pure white iris, and a pitch black sclera. A starless sky framed by the lids of his eyes. As a yongma or as a chachaoong, it was a single difference that kept him from being ordinary. But that difference was enough.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own TAL (A manhwa by Kang Im) or any of its characters. The last translated chapter I've read before writing this was ch 158, and since I can't read Korean, I can only guess what happens after from the pictures (and with the help of my good friend Google Translate) So if I get details wrong… yolo?**

Spoilers ahead.

* * *

 _"Thank you."  
_

 _A silver haired girl thanked the Tal. Her smile couldn't take any of the sadness away from her voice. It was obvious that she had exhausted all the tears she had in her petite body and more in the time Yi-Mae was gone._

 _"I thought you were scary," The girl, Jenna, admitted. She clutched the parchment she was given like it was her last hope in the world. "But it turns out you're really kind."_

 _"…I just know what it feels like to lose someone you depended on. Though it wasn't as bad as you guys." Yi-Mae quickly added._

 _Yes, unlike Hiljo, that man was alive. But after that event, Yi-Mae doubted that man would ever be the same, no matter how long he would rest. The friend he depended on was gone, and he was partially to blame. He shouldn't have depended on him in the first place. The days that were spent intentionally..._ jokingly _pissing each other off with that endless game of hide and seek. Did he even seriously try to find him in those days? Even if everything felt like a game, he should've properly done his job._ _The relationship between them should have stayed master and subordinate, no matter what pretences they held._

 _How did it begin? When did he forget that he was his master's strength?_

 _TAL chapter 52_

.

.

.

The story's just begun, but let's do a quick check.

Left leg? Check.

Left arm? Precariously supporting him on a branch on a cliff. But still, check.

Right arm and leg? Missing in action.

At least the rest of his black and white existence was somehow holding together.

Gotaya had carelessly placed his right side open when he was swarmed with enraged chachaoong. It was always harder to keep them alive than it was to kill them, and the challenge left him dismembered and on the verge of falling into the ravine. But the real reason why he was having such a hard time was because he managed to get hit by a strange poison that inhibited his regeneration ability, meaning he was in for a long wait if he wanted his limbs to recover. It should be expected that in a crowd this big, something different would be thrown at him. If that didn't happen, even a hundred of these fleas would be no match for him. So much for trying to support 'Yi-Mae'.

A sword had rather accurately pierced him through the heart and pinned him to the cliff behind him. One of them must've thought he was human, since they struck a meaningless spot. It was common knowledge that to kill one of his kind, you'd have to be chopped to pieces. Giving a yongma stab wounds was like trying to cut an apple by poking it with a needle.

Gotaya shook his head to clear his thoughts after he realized he compared himself to a fruit.

With missing limbs, he had three options:  
1) Let go of the branch and try to pull the sword out before his own weight rips him in half (He'd probably fall anyways)  
2) Ask Ja Yun for help (No.)  
3) Swing his body and use the momentum to get out. (Hurts like hell) ~Correct answer~

Since choice number 3 seemed to be the correct choice… _why did Gotaya have a feeling he would make more of these painful choices in the future?_ He was about to begin sawing himself in an attempt to break free when a voice called from above.

"What happened to you, Gotaya?" An all too familiar figure with long, dark hair and a brown Yi-Mae Tal mask peeked out from the edge of the cliff. His white robes billowed in the spring breeze. Thinking back to this day, a 17 year old Ja Yun was taller than a 17 year old Yu Jin. Maybe it was because he erased his memories when 'Yu Jin' was 15, and hadn't updated that illusion since then?

"…" Gotaya remained silent at the sight of his master.

"You must be getting old, if you can't even beat these guys. I guess that white hair isn't just for show, hm?" Ja Yun teased. "We might be the same age, but you look way older—"

"STOP." Gotaya glared. Amongst all the reactions people had when they saw him, the words _you-look-older_ came second only to _omg-you're-a-yongma_. And Ja Yun wouldn't let him hear the end of it.

"…Just get me out of here." He sighed. Letting his master watch him while he sawed himself in half would be worse than just asking for help.

"Was that an order? You call me a terrible master, but what's this?" Ja Yun shook his head. "Ah, what has this world come to, my own yongma is ordering me around. You're like expired meat from the supermarket. Meat that loses to all the other meat… A totally useless piece of _old_ meat, even the mass produced meat bags over there would be more useful."

The mass produced meat bags were, of course, the dozens of chachaoong completely trashed and knocked out by Ja Yun.

"If you don't help me, I'll turn you into ground beef once I get out of here." Gotaya's patience was wearing thin.

"Is that so? Well, good luck with that then—" The masked Tal quite literally, peace'd out. Bye bye!

"JA YUN!"

"I'm joking, geez. No need to yell." Ja Yun suddenly appeared behind him, clutching on the same branch he was dangling on. His speed was always impressive. "This will hurt, alright?"

With a gruesome splurt, the sword was pulled out.

"Gah!" Gotaya yelled. "You twisted that on purpose just now didn't you!?"

"It's not my fault, you're the one who's squirming. Be more grateful when receiving help." Ja Yun shrugged off his complaints.

"Do you want me to tell everyone that the real reason you don't take off your mask is because you have an uneven tan on your face? From playing by yourself in the sun for too long?"

"In case you forgot," Ja Yun raised the sword he had just pulled out. "I tend to throw the thing I'm holding when I get irritated… hm?"

Snap! The dreaded sound of wood cracking interrupted the conversation. The two looked at each other for a split second. Then at the gaping abyss below them.

"Uh-oh."

.

.

.

A four thousand foot plummet and a struggle landing with missing limbs later, the two found themselves at the foot of the mountain. It was quiet, with a few trees overlooking the crag.

Gotaya propped himself upright on a rock. The bleeding had stopped, but his regeneration was still much slower than normal. Meanwhile, the Tal was surveying the area but oddly enough, he stayed in the vicinity.

"…What is it?" Gotaya asked cautiously. This is usually the part where his shitty master asks him for a favor. "Normally you'd be long gone by now."

"I can't just leave you alone like this." The Tal took a seat beside his yongma, and pointing at the missing limbs. "I'll wait here until you regenerate, at least. …You can stop giving me that suspicious look now."

"…" e_e

"You know, this reminds me of the time we got lost in the northern mountains." The chachaoong decided to just ignore the distrustful glare.

"You mean it reminds you of the time when I told you _not_ to go to the northern mountains but you went anyway and I tried to stop you from falling off a snowy cliff, but we both fell anyways?" You could see the veins on his temples bulge. "And then you went ahead nagged at me until I carried you back down?"

"Erm… is that so..?" Ja Yun vaguely remembered something… like that… happening… ?

"You think it's fun carrying a grown man down a mountain, huh?" Gotaya probed at him. "Taking care of an idiot with a fever, huh? You even know full well that YOUR wellbeing affects MY wellbeing, and that _I_ feel exhausted when _you_ are sick. Do you think it's easy doing hard labour when you're tired? Do you? Now that I think about it, why didn't you use your ability to heal yourself? Downgrading me to a porter, and being ported down a mountain... You like seeing people suffer, hm? Your S tendencies-"

"I get it, I'm sorry." Ja Yun raised his hands in defeat. He shouldn't have brought it up. "Just rest, alright? If you get too angry, your blood pressure will rise-"

"That's not possible for a yongma and you know it, you bastard-"

After a good whack, silence fell between the two.

"Why did you go after those guys anyway?" Gotaya finally asked. The irritation was thick in his voice. "If you're going to purposely put yourself in trouble, at least call me before you do. If you die, I die too."

"Haha, it's a secret." Ja Yun chuckled.

Gotaya decided to let it go. Knowing how stubborn he was, a secret would stay a secret once Ja Yun decided that it would be so. But rather than the snowy mountain memory, this event was almost identical to something he'd rather not recall.

It reminded him of the day he experienced death.

* * *

 **Bonus** : I like drawing so ta-dah! A somewhat younger Gotaya~

i63.-tinypic.-com/-2lu9kjm

Remove the dash lines - once you paste it in your browser.  
The art style is inconsistent in manwha. Sometimes he's drawn older or younger looking than this. Same goes for Yu Jin's transformed version. The twins are always spot on though. I can sense the love for them, but not the main characters...


	2. Chapter 2

Yongma develop in different ways from chachaoong. All of them are born at the same time as their masters, but in the beginning, do not posses a sentience. They have a chance to develop it as time goes on, but until then, they are tools. If they have the capacity to become self aware, they first learn to think for their masters. Then, they learn to think for themselves. Emotions are merely a byproduct of this process and therefore a yongma can easily set aside its own feelings for their master's will.

Think about it, a fully aware yongma raising a child? How would that even work? That's like starting a new game with an over-levelled pet, p-levelling you through life. If that were the case every chachaoong lucky enough to be born with a yongma would definitely survive to adulthood, but as common as having a yongma is, the survival rate is still very low.

That's why _controlling_ a yongma is considered an "ability". A toddler wouldn't know how to control anything, much less a yongma. Thus, the survival rate remains the same.

Ja-Yun and Gotaya are no exception. Despite Gotaya's abnormally rapid development due to his ability, the two were still children and could barely even manifest a weapon. They needed guardians to protect them in their most vulnerable years and two unlikely beings filled that role quite well…

* * *

 _Approximately 300 years ago_

* * *

The mountain couldn't take the warmth away from the sunshine that spilled blissfully upon the meadow where a young chachaoong was spending his days doing nothing but roll around in the grass. Compared to the limitless lifespan of a chachaoong, being 8-years old means being just a newborn. The peaceful scene was disturbed when the the earth began to shift with the rhythmic rumble of impossibly large footsteps. Ja-Yun perked up in anticipation.

"Ju-Ze!" The child squealed and rushed towards the giant… dog? Lion? And gave him a hug. The size of the beast seemed to dwarf the towering trees of the forest surrounding them. Trailing behind the creature was a somewhat smaller version of Ju-Ze, with a blue mask rather than his red one.

"Ga-Ze is here too!" The little boy pounced on Ju-Ze's female counterpart. The tiny, 8-year old body disappeared into the mountain of fluff with every hug.

"Is it lunch time?" The young Ja-Yun asked. He rolled around Ga-Ze's head.

Ju-Ze nodded, and with a soft growl, opened his mouth to drop a mix of nuts and berries.

"Remember to wash them before eating," The voice of a young boy came from the top of a tree. His black attire made him blend into the shadows, but the soft white of his hair gave him away. As a child, Gotaya kept his hair short and in a messy bunched up ponytail.

"Yeah, I know." Ja-Yun waved for him to come down. (Does Gotaya think he's a mom?) He held out the mix of food in front of him. "Wash these, please."

Gotaya already had the berries in his hands when stopped himself. Sometimes he'd just follow every order absentmindedly, and Ja-Yun had grown used to that. It was only recently that he realized what he was doing. Kids need to learn to do their own chores or they'll grow up irresponsible.

"You're the only one out of the four of us who eats." Gotaya sighed. "And yet, we're the ones who do the dirty work. You really should learn how to get food and prepare it for yourself."

"My job is to eat, your job is to prepare. We're splitting the work 50/50." Ja-Yun told him matter-of-factly. "Unless you want to trade jobs? We already know that's not possible."

"...That's..." The yongma didn't have a comeback to that. "Well, swallowing plants or roasted animal corpses isn't going to kill me, but isn't the reason why you don't want to do it yourself is because you just want to play?"

Ja-Yun pretended he didn't hear that last part. (He's starting to catch on!) "Can't you say that in a nicer way?"

"Don't change the subject."

"Gotayaaa~" He continued, nudging him playfully. "Plheaaase~?"

"I'm just looking out for you." Gotaya held out the slobbery mix of food. "You need to know how to take care of yourself, master."

"I guess I'll just eat these the way they are, then." Ja-Yun was about to put them in his mouth when they were swiped away.

"Ugh, I get it, you win." The young yongma grumbled. He couldn't stand to just watch Ja-Yun eat something that could get him sick. Ultimately, that means _he_ would get sick. "Please don't do anything dangerous while I'm gone."

Gotaya stormed off to the stream while Ja-Yun played around with the two beasts. Seriously, he could see Ja-Yun's silhouette being tossed up into the sky from his location. He was too far away to really hear, but that boy was definitely having the time of his life while he was out here doing all the work. Can't he have fun in a safer manner?

He hurriedly washed the goods and rushed back to the others.

"Wah!" Gotaya nearly dropped what he was holding when Ga-Ze scooped him up by the neck of his shirt and planted him on top of Ju-Ze. Ja-Yun popped out randomly from the sea of fur.

"You're back!" The boy said excitedly and immediately began to enjoy the picnic on top of Ju-Ze.

"Slow down, you're getting juice all over his coat." Gotaya said worriedly.

"I can't help it, the amount of food has been going down recently and I'm a growing boy." Ja-Yun kept stuffing his face. "…Hm? It's all gone. I'm still starving. Is there any more?"

Ga-Ze regretfully shook her head.

"I guess you couldn't find any." Ja-Yun said to himself. "You've been foraging for longer periods of time too… Gotaya, are you sure you didn't drop anything?"

"Who do you think I am?" The boy replied irritably. "You had the choice of taking care of it yourself. I'll shoot down the next bird I see, alright? I'll show you just how good I've gotten with my bow... What would you ever do without me?"

"Um... thanks." There goes his smug grin again. Ja-Yun closed his eyes in thought. "The fact is, the food situation is getting desperate... How about we split up? We'll need someone to travel to a different region to see if it's better to live there. And if not… hm, I guess the rest of us will have to find a way to survive here in the meanwhile."

Ga-Ze licked two kids with affection. One was mortified by the slobbery mess, while the other was happy to receive a sign of love.

"Are you worried about us, Ga-Ze?" Ja-Yun giggled. "Okay, we won't go off somewhere."

Ju-Ze growled below them, and the plush ground rumbled with his breath. His tail wagged.

"Then Ju-Ze will be the one to explore a different region." Ja-Yun jumped down to give the beast a hug before it left, with Gotaya silently following behind. "Thank you, Ju-Ze!"

The three watched the beast-like Tal pounce away with incredible speed.

"I hope you have a plan, master." Gotaya folded his arms. "I've hardly seen any forest animals recently. The food shortage isn't affecting just us."

"Just call me by name," Ja-Yun insisted. "Being called 'master' all the time is a bit… hm, it's like I'm one of those frail young masters in those shiny houses that need to be babied all the time."

"Sigh, and you think you don't need to be babied?"

"You're not even sighing, you're just saying 'sigh'."

"Anyways, what's your plan?" Gotaya tried to drop the subject. "I have a feeling it's a troublesome one…"

"We're going to the human village nearby!" Ja-Yun said proudly. **The feeling came true.

"You do realize that Ga-Ze and I can't go in there, right?" The yongma grew even more annoyed. "My eyes will definitely catch their attention and Ga-Ze… Ga-Ze is a giant dog! There is no way I'm letting you go somewhere unknown by yourself. Even if you did go alone, it's too suspicious for a child to be wandering around in a village they don't belong in. Are you just asking for trouble?"

"It'll work out somehow," He replied nonchalantly, and began to lead the way.

 _Seriously…?_

* * *

 _Meanwhile in the village of Ma-Eul_

* * *

The town meeting was filled with hungry and desperate souls. The villagers who had gathered were expecting news, ANY type of news to bring change to the death all around them. But the only type of news the people had were bad ones. Rations were at an all time low, and crops have failed once more. People were starving. The tension converged into one room, where the adults of the village had gathered.

There have already been many who turned to pillaging and thievery, stealing their neighbours livestock or otherwise raiding homes in packs in search of what little food they could find. Crimes have doubled since last week. The people need a solution and they need it now.

"The crops this season are bad again…" The village elder finally spoke.

"We can't rely on game anymore, either. Even the forest animals can't find anything to eat." A hunter sighed. "It's hard to find even a rabbit out there. We can't possibly feed everyone with what we can hunt."

"Have we angered the gods?" A woman cried.

"It's the yokwe! I swear!" A haphazard old man screeched. "I saw large beasts with inhuman creatures! They are causing the famine!"

"Not again with that story about monsters, Grandfather, yokwe are just stories…" A young woman tried to pacify him.

"The beasts are travelling with demon children!" The old man continued. "One had pitch black eyes with the moon as pupils! I witnessed the other laugh maniacally as it flew into the night sky! Those children will lead us to our doom!"

"Shut up you crazy—" Someone snapped.

"No, it's true! At least the part about the beasts." A villager blurted out just before a fight could break out. "There were massive footprints on the forest path. A beast that huge has to eat just as much! Maybe it's eating all the food in the forest?"

Murmurs bursted out between the people. If it's true that a huge beast existed, then...

"That settles it." The elder's voice cut through the commotion.

"What? What's settled?" A villager asked.

"We will hunt that beast. It's meat will provide for our village, and at the same time we'll be rid of what's eating the forest animals." The elder replied, and turned to the hunter. "You are the most competent hunter in this whole region. Everyone is depending on you for your success."

"…Leave it to me, elder." The hunter was resolute. He gripped his bow tightly. Nervousness racked up through his spine, but there was no fear. The people were counting on him to survive after all.

"Father..!" The young woman who had calmed down the crazed old man called to the hunter.

"I'll be careful, Mi-Rah." The man assured her. "This is for our family's sake as well. I'll put food on the table, just as I always have."

The hunter left with the crowd, who had gathered in the hopes of being the first to choose from the meat of their prey. A giant mountain beast will not go down easily, after all. The hunting party was armed.

The elder grinned. "Soon... we'll have our fill."

* * *

 **Note from the author**

A lot of the 'facts' here are just my own theories/headcanons. I guess I'll try to reference chapters where I got my ideas from? :o

Yi-Mae mentioned that there use to be a female counterpart to Ju-Ze, but the name was never mentioned. It's right after the first encounter with Bi-Gak. In Ch 151, Chuh-yong mentions in a flashback that yongma can gain its own ego after some time, implying that they have none to start with.

*Yokwe = Supernatural Creatures as Ghosts/Spirits,Demons,Gods or Monsters of the korean Mythology. "Yongma" are apparently a type of yokwe.

*Ma-Eul means village. A village called village. My imagination can't be functioning all the time, ok.


End file.
